Selfish Sounds and Linguistic Evolution: A Darwinian Approach to Language Change

1. Introduction 2. The historical perspective 3. Approaching 'language change' 4. The Darwinian approach 5. Generalising Darwinism 6. Towards an evolutionary theory of language 7. What does all this imply for the study of language change? 8. How to live with feet, if one happens to be a morph-meme 9. The prosodic evolution of English word forms or the great trochaic conspiracy 10. Conclusion.

[1]  P. Smolensky,et al.  Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar , 2004 .

[2]  D. Dennett,et al.  Darwinizing culture : the status of memetics as a science , 2001 .

[3]  S. Mufwene.  The ecology of language evolution , 2001 .

[4]  C. Borst,et al.  Operating on a beating heart. , 2000, Scientific American.

[5]  S. Blackmore.  The power of memes. , 2000, Scientific American.

[6]  Christiane Dalton-Puffer,et al.  Words: Structure, Meaning, Function: A Festschrift for Dieter Kastovsky , 2000 .

[7]  Language Contact, Evolution, and Death: How Ecology Rolls the Dice , 2000 .

[8]  M. Lewis,et al.  Assessing ethnolinguistic vitality : theory and practice , 2000 .

[9]  W. Dressler.  Why collapse morphological concepts? , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[10]  Murray Gell-Mann,et al.  Complex adaptive systems , 1999 .

[11]  D. Jamieson.  The “trivial neuron doctrine” is not trivial , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[12]  N. Chater.  Why biological neuroscience cannot replace psychology , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[13]  D. Stoljar,et al.  A neuron doctrine in the philosophy of neuroscience , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[14]  Christopher S. Hill.  The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds In A Material World , 1999 .

[15]  S. Blackmore.  The Meme Machine , 1999 .

[16]  S. Pinker.  How the Mind Works , 1999, Philosophy after Darwin.

[17]  D. Lightfoot.  The development of language , 1999 .

[18]  M. Haspelmath,et al.  Optimality and diachronic adaptation , 1999 .

[19]  Jaegwon Kim.  Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation , 2001 .

[20]  Steven Pinker,et al.  Words and rules , 1998 .

[21]  Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero.  Prosodic optimization: the Middle English length adjustment , 1998, English Language and Linguistics.

[22]  James A. Anderson,et al.  An Introduction To Neural Networks , 1998 .

[23]  Susan Blackmore,et al.  Imitation and the definition of a meme , 1998 .

[24]  T. Deacon.  The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain , 1998 .

[25]  Jacek Fisiak,et al.  Studies in Middle English linguistics , 1997 .

[26]  S. Gould.  Life's grandeur : the spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin , 1997 .

[27]  R. Lass.  Historical linguistics and language change , 1997 .

[28]  D. Chalmers.  The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory , 1996 .

[29]  Solomon H. Snyder,et al.  Drugs and the brain , 1996 .

[30]  M. Boden.  The Philosophy of Artificial Life , 1996 .

[31]  Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy,et al.  Natural phonology : the state of the art , 1996 .

[32]  K. Dziubalska-Kolaczyk.  Natural Phonology without the syllable , 1996 .

[33]  R. Dawkins.  Climbing Mount Improbable , 1996 .

[34]  Salikoko S. Mufwene,et al.  The founder principle in creole genesis , 1996 .

[35]  S. Gould,et al.  Dinosaur in a Haystack. Reflections in Natural History. London (Jonathan Cape) 1996. , 1996 .

[36]  Robin I. M. Dunbar.  Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language , 1996 .

[37]  M. Ridley.  The Origins of Virtue , 1996 .

[38]  W. Clark.  At War Within: The Double-Edged Sword of Immunity , 1995 .

[39]  R. Brodie.  Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme , 1995 .

[40]  Niles Eldredge.  Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolution Debate , 1995 .

[41]  P. Churchland.  The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul , 1995 .

[42]  Douglas R. Hofstadter,et al.  The architecture of Jumbo , 1995 .

[43]  Gary Cziko,et al.  Without Miracles: Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution , 1995 .

[44]  Bo Dahlbom.  Dennett and his critics : demystifying mind , 1995 .

[45]  D. Dennett.  Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life , 1995 .

[46]  Cynthia Macdonald,et al.  Connectionism: Debates on Psychological Explanation , 1995 .

[47]  Harold J. Morowitz,et al.  The Mind, the Brain, and Complex Adaptive Systems , 1995 .

[48]  John H. Holland,et al.  Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity , 1995 .

[49]  R. Dawkins.  River Out of Eden , 1995 .

[50]  S. Kauffman.  At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity , 1995 .

[51]  John Harris,et al.  English Sound Structure , 1994 .

[52]  Bernard Η. Bichakjian.  Language evolution: A Darwinian process , 1994 .

[53]  H. C. Plotkin,et al.  Darwin machines and the nature of knowledge , 1994 .

[54]  J. Sutherland.  The Quark and the Jaguar , 1994 .

[55]  Nikolaus Ritt,et al.  Quantity Adjustment: Vowel Lengthening and Shortening in Early Middle English , 1994 .

[56]  F. Crick,et al.  The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul , 1994 .

[57]  S. Pinker.  The Language Instinct , 1994 .

[58]  Daniel C. Dennett,et al.  Precis of Consciousness Explained@@@Consciousness Explained. , 1993 .

[59]  M. Mitchell Waldrop,et al.  Complexity : the emerging science and the edge of order and chaos , 1992 .

[60]  Noam Chomsky.  Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures , 1993 .

[61]  E. Couper-Kuhlen.  English speech rhythm , 1993 .

[62]  S. Zeki.  A vision of the brain , 1993 .

[63]  M. Ridley.  The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature , 1993 .

[64]  Jan Svartvik,et al.  Directions in corpus linguistics : proceedings of Nobel Symposium 82, Stockholm, 4-8 August 1991 , 1992 .

[65]  Irma Taavitsainen,et al.  History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics , 1992 .

[66]  J. Earman.  Inference, explanation, and other frustrations : essays in the philosophy of science , 1992 .

[67]  Joan M. Fayer,et al.  Linguistic variation and change , 1992 .

[68]  A. Liberman.  A Bird'S-Eye View of Open Syllable Lengthening in English and in the Other Germanic Languages , 1992 .

[69]  Murray Gell-Mann,et al.  Complexity and Complex Adaptive Systems , 1992 .

[70]  A. Costall.  The 'Meme' Meme , 1991 .

[71]  Donka Minkova,et al.  The History of Final Vowels in English: The Sound of Muting , 1991 .

[72]  John L. Casti,et al.  Paradigms Lost: Images of Man in the Mirror of Science , 1991 .

[73]  John Price-Wilkin,et al.  Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) , 1991 .

[74]  R. Lass.  How to Do Things with Junk: Exaptation in Language Evolution. , 1990 .

[75]  D. Dennett.  The Interpretation of Texts, People and Other Artifacts , 1990 .

[76]  G. Lakoff.  Women, fire, and dangerous things : what categories reveal about the mind , 1988, Dialogue.

[77]  R. Keller,et al.  Sprachwandel : von der unsichtbaren Hand in der Sprache , 1990 .

[78]  S. Gould.  Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History , 1989 .

[79]  Charles L. Jones.  A history of English phonology , 1989 .

[80]  David L. Hull,et al.  Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science, David L. Hull. 1988. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. 608 pages. ISBN: 0-226-35060-4. $39.95 , 1989 .

[81]  John Maynard Smith,et al.  Did Darwin Get It Right?: Essays on Games, Sex and Evolution , 1988 .

[82]  E. Battistella,et al.  Preference Laws for Syllable Structure and the Explanation of Sound Change , 1988 .

[83]  D. Hubel.  Eye, brain, and vision , 1988 .

[84]  H. Plotkin.  The Role of behavior in evolution , 1988 .

[85]  Wolfgang U. Dressler,et al.  Morphonology: The Dynamics of Derivation , 1987 .

[86]  J. Fodor.  Making Mind Matter More , 1987 .

[87]  Noam Chomsky.  Language and Problems of Knowledge , 1987 .

[88]  Lesley Milroy,et al.  Observing and Analysing Natural Language , 1987 .

[89]  E. Vrba.  Species and speciation , 1987 .

[90]  Jacques Durand,et al.  Dependency and Non-Linear Phonology , 2018 .

[91]  P. Churchland.  Neurophilosophy: Toward a unified science of the mind , 1989 .

[92]  Theo Vennemann.  Neuere Entwicklungen in der Phonologie , 1986 .

[93]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Parallel distributed processing: explorations in the microstructure of cognition, vol. 1: foundations , 1986 .

[94]  R. Lass.  On sh*tting the door in modern English: A reply to Professor Samuels , 1986 .

[95]  M. L. Samuels.  A brief rejoinder to Professor Lass , 1986 .

[96]  O. Fischer,et al.  Explanation and linguistic change , 1986 .

[97]  M. Samuels.  The status of the functional approach , 1986 .

[98]  R. Dawkins.  The Blind Watchmaker , 1986 .

[99]  P. Richerson,et al.  Culture and the Evolutionary Process , 1988 .

[100]  Samuel Jay Keyser,et al.  CV Phonology: A Generative Theory of the Syllable , 1988 .

[101]  Theo Vennemann,et al.  Sound Change and Syllable Structure in Germanic Phonology , 1983 .

[102]  John F. Richardson,et al.  Papers from the Parasession on the Interplay of Phonology, Morphology and Syntax , 1983 .

[103]  Jan Svartvik,et al.  A __ comprehensive grammar of the English language , 1988 .

[104]  S. Gould,et al.  Darwinism and the expansion of evolutionary theory. , 1982, Science.

[105]  K. Lorenz,et al.  Vergleichende Verhaltensforschung : Grundlagen der Ethologie , 1982 .

[106]  R. Dawkins.  The Extended Phenotype , 1982 .

[107]  Edward O. Wilson,et al.  GENES, MIND AND CULTURE , 1984 .

[108]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  Lectures on Government and Binding , 1981 .

[109]  L. Margulis.  Symbiosis in cell evolution: Life and its environment on the early earth , 1981 .

[110]  M. Feldman,et al.  Cultural transmission and evolution: a quantitative approach. , 1981, Monographs in population biology.

[111]  R. Lass.  On Explaining Language Change , 1981 .

[112]  Lesley Milroy,et al.  Language and social networks , 1980 .

[113]  D. Hofstadter,et al.  Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid , 1979 .

[114]  K. Popper,et al.  The self and its brain , 1977 .

[115]  F. Cloak.  Is a cultural ethology possible? , 1975 .

[116]  John H. Holland,et al.  Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Applications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence , 1992 .

[117]  P. Trudgill.  The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich , 1974 .

[118]  J. Hooper.  The Syllable in Phonological Theory , 1972 .

[119]  R. Lewontin.  The Units of Selection , 1970, The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory.

[120]  Winfred P. Lehmann,et al.  Directions for Historical Linguistics: A Symposium , 1968 .

[121]  Karl R. Popper,et al.  Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject , 1968 .

[122]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Sound Pattern of English , 1968 .

[123]  K. Luick,et al.  Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache , 1966 .

[124]  D. Abercrombie,et al.  A PHONETICIAN’S VIEW OF VERSE STRUCTURE , 1964 .

[125]  Robert D. Stevick,et al.  The Biological Model and Historical Linguistics , 1963 .

[126]  P. Hartmann.  Zur Theorie der Sprachwissenschaft , 1961 .

[127]  D. Campbell.  Blind variation and selective retention in creative thought as in other knowledge processes. , 1960, Psychological review.

[128]  L. White,et al.  The Evolution of Culture , 1999 .

[129]  R. G. Kent,et al.  Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin , 1923 .

[130]  F. Saussure,et al.  Course in General Linguistics , 1960 .

[131]  Henri Bergson,et al.  L'évolution créatrice , 1908 .

[132]  C. Darwin.  The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , 1859 .